Much as Pamplona has the Running of the Bulls, I have the Bleaching of the Blocks.
In the halcyon days of our relationship, Tig and I came to a conclusion. We both had Block Deprived Childhoods. Oh, we had blocks, sure…but it was never enough. Our children would NEVER experience the hardships that we had because of a building block deficiency. Want to build a model of the Great Wall of China? No problem! Here, let Daddy move the sofa to give me us you more room.
It started out innocuously enough. We purchased a few packages of blocks at our Local Wall To Wall Mart, and stored them in an old laundry basket.
Then we discovered you can find them on ebay.
Dear sweet merciful heavens, what have we done??!!??
I stalked the mailman every day. “Do you have my box of blocks today, Mr. Mailman?”
“No, Ma’am. ”
Days turned into weeks, and they into months. Another ice age would come before those blocks got here, I was CERTAIN of it.
(I might be overstating things just a wee bit here.)
Finally, the day came. The blocks were HERE! I tore into the box like it was Christmas morning, threw the massive amounts of packing materials on the floor, and dumped the blocks into our Poor Tired Laundry Basket.
It looked at me, said “What the FUCK??!!??” and exploded.
(I may have overstated that a wee bit, too. Shup, it’s called being creative.)
The explosion of our Poor Tired Laundry Basket led to the purchase of the Mighty Fucking Big Red Bucket. We left the label on the front of this thing so that we could loan it to the UN Food Relief folks *just* on the outside chance that they needed it to feed a third world country or something.
We brought this MFBRB home with pride, certain that we would NEVER EVER come close to filling this thing with blocks.
We were wrong.
We gathered up the guts of the Poor Tired Laundry Basket, and dumped the blocks into the MFBRB. We took down the current sculpture in progress. We scoured the house, looking for every. single. fucking. block. We found the door, the window. 
The cars 
.
Did I mention we bought the Block Piano 
complete with 
music blocks?
The Bucket was full.
Now, I’m pretty sure you all know what comes next. The kids assiduously ignore the blocks. They sit, gathering dust for a few months….spend some time in the storage trailer, waiting for the day.
The day when the kids realize that we have more building blocks than most daycares.
Folks, that day was today. The Mighty Fucking Big Red Bucket was overturned in the livingroom, much to the delight of the boys, who said (respectively) “YAAAAAY BLOCKS!” and “OOOH!”
A few minutes went by. Dan let out a shriek that would cut glass.
Have I mentioned Dan has issues with certain textures and sensations? Well, now’s a good time to bring that up.
Some of the blocks were sticky, making his hands sticky. “Oh, blocks! Why hast thou betrayed me so!!??!!” I shouted at the top of my lungs as I looked for the vile culprits.
They were ALL sticky.
In the bottom of the bucket there’s a viscous somewhat sinister-looking collection of goo that could use a good shave and haircut before it gets washed.
I groaned.
I picked up every single one of those motherFUCKING blocks, put them BACK in the MFBRB, and dumped them in the tub. With bleach.
The boys were somewhat upset. How DARE I take away their Coolest.Toy.EVER. and lock them out of the bathroom while I deal with fumes and chemicals and things??!!??
They got over it in the rinse cycle.
That was awesome. Can I come play with the blocks and build a model of the wall of china too??? when huh? huh??